David Gauke is a former Justice Secretary, and was an independent candidate in South-West Hertfordshire at the 2019 general election.
It says something about the travails of the Government that a row about an SNP motion designed to embarrass the Labour Party, which led to a controversial ruling by the Speaker, which in turn led to accusations of improper behaviour by the Labour leadership, has ended up as a problem for the Conservatives.
We should recap the events in Parliament of last week. It is a complex tale, not just because the details of Parliamentary procedure are mystifying to most outside Westminster (and quite a few inside, too) but because all the parties involved had mixed motives. No one comes out of it well.
Let’s start with the SNP. On the wider Israel-Palestine issue, the SNP sides heavily towards the Palestinians. Humza Yousuf has strong family connections with Gaza but, more importantly, the SNP see the Scots and the Palestinians as victims of Western colonialism seeking liberation from their oppressors. This may be laughable and misguided, but it is sincere.
The SNP are also opportunists, and see the events in Gaza as a means of stopping Labour’s advance in Scotland. Their motion was designed to make it hard for the Labour frontbench to support (with references to Israel inflicting “collective punishment”) but hard for Labour MPs not to support. A failure to walk through the SNP’s lobbies would be portrayed as failing to back a ceasefire.
This left Labour cornered, with the risk of Shadow Cabinet resignations or more accusations of Sir Keir Starmer flip-flopping if he changed approach.
At this point, Labour came up with a plan: produce their own motion that backs a ceasefire, but presents it in a more balanced way. Labour MPs could then say that they had voted for a ceasefire without defying their whips.
The problem is that this motion would not normally be called by the Speaker. But on Wednesday, it was. Why?
Lindsay Hoyle’s motives here are important in understanding the whole story. The first explanation is that the Labour whips got to him and made it clear that if he wanted to stay in post after the next election, he had better call the Labour motion. This appears to be the view of many Conservative and SNP MPs at the time – that Hoyle was put under improper pressure and gave way.
The second explanation, which is Hoyle’s, is that he was concerned about the safety of MPs, that allowing the Labour motion would enable MPs to vote for something that was not as divisive as the SNP motion but not as antagonistic to parts of the country as failing to support a ceasefire.
As tempers cool, I suspect that more MPs will come to the view that this is what motivated him. Hoyle is popular with most MPs, who see him as well-meaning and decent. Personally, I have no doubt that he was sincere in his belief that unless a wider choice of motions were to be offered to MPs, voting records would be used to whip up hatred against MPs and potentially end in violence.
Some have dismissed this fear and Islamophobia. That is very misguided. There are many MPs concerned for their safety. Death threats have sadly become commonplace, and I have spoken to MPs who are genuinely fearful for their lives.
Hoyle will have spoken to many more. Mike Freer announced he was standing down after there was an arson attack on his office; the Speaker will also remember the death of David Amess at the hands of an Islamist.
A second criticism is that in breaching parliamentary precedent, he has allowed the threat of terrorism to change our democracy. It is an understandable objection, and we are right to be wary about it.
But I am not sure that this is quite the issue here. If the threat is real – and I think it is – taking proportionate measures to reduce that threat would be reasonable. There is an arguable case for offering a wider choice of motions that goes further than the Government but is less hostile to Israel than the SNP’s wording. (As it happens, I think Labour position is muddled and that the Government’s is correct.)
The real issue here is not so much that parliamentary procedure has been changed it is that MPs’ votes may be being changed because of the threat of terrorism.
Paul Bristow, the Conservative MP, made a striking point of order on Wednesday, telling the Deputy Speaker:
“Because people misrepresented my position, someone suggested on social media that they would show my wife a real man. Someone else suggested that they would attack me and my family. Already today, Labour councillors in my patch are tweeting that I have not supported a ceasefire. I wanted to vote with the SNP motion on a ceasefire. Can you advise me how I can make my constituents clear of my views, given that I was not able to vote?”
I do not doubt Bristow’s sincerity of views on Gaza and sympathise with him over the extraordinary pressure he is under. But reading his remarks, any pro-Palestinian extremist could easily reach the conclusion that intimidation works.
This is not an issue we should ignore. In a democracy, we should expect our leaders to be responsive to public opinion – but not to the fear of physical retribution.
We should also not shy away from identifying the source of the threat. Islamist terror is not the only threat to the lives of MPs – it was a far-right fanatic who murdered Jo Cox – but it is Islamist terror that is the causing sleepless nights for MPs when considering their positions on Gaza, and it was an Islamist terrorist who called murdered Amess.
MPs should not be expected to deny this reality. But we should also expect MPs to address this matter responsibly. That is a test that has been failed too often in recent days.
We should be worried about demonstrations chanting “from the river to the sea” or that MPs’ safety has become such a concern, but it is hyperbolic and wrong to claim that “the Islamists, the extremists and the anti-Semites are in charge now”, as Suella Braverman has done.
More recently, Lee Anderson has rightly been suspended for saying that “the Islamists… have got control of [Sadiq] Khan and they’ve got of London… he’s actually given our capital city away to his mates”.
There are plenty of criticisms that can be levelled at Khan. But he is no Islamist, extremist or anti-Semite. Anderson’s allegations appear to rely very heavily on the fact that Khan is a Muslim which, to put it mildly, gives the impression of Islamophobia (the reference to “his mates” particularly jars). His failure to apologise only strengthens that impression.
Meanwhile, in the US, Liz Truss nods away as Steve Bannon refers to Tommy Robinson as a “hero”.
All of this is deeply depressing. Political game-playing, parliamentary chaos, the Speaker’s position at risk, MPs intimidated, and Conservative politicians incapable of discussing this matter maturely. And to add to the gloom, there is a good chance that George Galloway will be back in Parliament by the end of the week. It has been a bad few days for British politics.